Method And Apparatus For Constructing Informative Outcomes To Guide Multi-Policy Decision Making

ABSTRACT

In Multi-Policy Decision-Making (MPDM), many computationally-expensive forward simulations are performed in order to predict the performance of a set of candidate policies. In risk-aware formulations of MPDM, only the worst outcomes affect the decision making process, and efficiently finding these influential outcomes becomes the core challenge. Recently, stochastic gradient optimization algorithms, using a heuristic function, were shown to be significantly superior to random sampling. In this disclosure, it was shown that accurate gradients can be computed-even through a complex forward simulation—using approaches similar to those in dep networks. The proposed approach finds influential outcomes more reliably, and is faster than earlier methods, allowing one to evaluate more policies while simultaneously eliminating the need to design an easily-differentiable heuristic function.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No.62/472,734, filed on Mar. 17, 2017. The entire disclosure of the aboveapplication is incorporated herein by reference.

GOVERNMENT CLAUSE

This invention was made with government support under Grant No.D13AP00059 awarded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. TheGovernment has certain rights in this invention.

FIELD

The present disclosure relates to a method for multi-policy decisionmaking of an object moving through an environment.

BACKGROUND

Autonomously controlled objects, such as a robot or vehicle, need toconsider their surrounding environment in order to make decisionsregarding which direction to pursue. To do this, the controlled objectconsiders all possible scenarios, directions, and outcomes for itselfand the objects around them. However, randomly considering each possiblescenario is not only computationally expensive, but it is alsoinefficient as it does not define a method for identifying scenarioswhere the controlled object may experience collisions or other high-costoccurrences.

The background description provided here is for the purpose of generallypresenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently namedinventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, aswell as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify asprior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedlyadmitted as prior art against the present disclosure.

SUMMARY

This section provides a general summary of the disclosure, and is not acomprehensive disclosure of its full scope or all of its features.

A computer-implemented method is presented for issuing a command to acontrolled object in an environment. A determination is made for eachpolicy from a set of policies, where a policy specifies the command forthe controlled object to implement and the command directly affectsmotion of the controlled object. As a starting point, a state estimateis received for each of one or more monitored objects and the controlledobject, where each state estimate includes state elements, and the stateelements are indicative of a position of the respective object and avelocity of the respective object.

Seed states are generated for each of the one or more monitored objectsand the controlled object. Movement of the one or more monitored objectsand the controlled object is then simulated using the seed states, wherethe simulation includes the controlled object executing the respectivepolicy. An outcome of the simulation with the seed states is quantifiedby assigning a cost to outcome of the simulation with the seed statesand determining a probability associated with the seed states.

Seed states are perturbed (e.g, using backpropagation) and movement ofthe one or more monitored objects and the controlled object objects issimulated using the perturbed inputs. Simulating movement of the one ormore monitored objects and the controlled objects with differentperturbed inputs is repeated until a predetermined condition is met,thereby generating a plurality of perturbed outcomes.

For each policy, a policy score is determined for the respective policy,where the policy score correlates to the perturbed outcome havinghighest value amongst the plurality of perturbed outcomes for therespective policy. A given policy is then selected from the set ofpolicies, where the given policy has most benign outcome amongst thepolicies in the set of policies. Lastly, a command is issued to thecontrolled object in accordance with the given policy.

Simulating movement of the one or more monitored objects, includesrepresenting trajectory of an object using a differentiable function. Inone embodiment, the trajectory of an object is presented by recursivelyapplying a transition function over a series of time steps, where thetransition function is defined such that objects are repelled by otheragents and attracted towards a goal in accordance with a social forcemodel. In addition, perturbed seed states are determined by iterativelycomputing gradient for each time step in the series of time steps withrespect to the perturbed seed states.

In some embodiments, the given policy avoids a set of undesiredoutcomes, and the set of undesired outcomes includes at least one of (i)a collision between the controlled object and one of the one or moremonitored objects; and (ii) the controlled object being within apredetermined distance of the one or more monitored objects.

The cost is determined using a blame metric, where the blame metric is afunction of a distance between the controlled object and one of the oneor more monitored objects and the velocity of the controlled object. Thecost also accounts for the progress toward the goal of the controlledobject.

In some embodiments, the set of policies includes at least one of thefollowing commands for the controlled object to: (i) change a trajectoryto follow one of the one or more monitored objects; (ii) remain in thesame position; (iii) move forward; (iv) decelerate; and (v) accelerate.

Further areas of applicability will become apparent from the descriptionprovided herein. The description and specific examples in this summaryare intended for purposes of illustration only and are not intended tolimit the scope of the present disclosure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present disclosure will become more fully understood from thedetailed description and the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a multi-policy decisionmaking (MPDM) apparatus;

FIG. 2 is a diagram of an environment where a controlled object wouldinstitute MPDM; and

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of an embodiment of the MPDM apparatus.

FIG. 4 is a diagram of a deep network representation for a costfunction. The initial configuration x0 propagates through severallayers, each representing the transition function T. The output of layert determines a cost. The cost function accumulates costs calculated ateach time-step along the forward simulated trajectory.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an example transition function. Blockdiagram of the transition function. At each time-step, an agent i (inthis case, the robot) is repelled by other agents (f_(rep) ^(i)) andattracted towards its sub-goal g_(sub) in accordance to the Social ForceModel (SFM). Pedestrians are modeled using the HSFM model where thesocial force acts as a control input for the Human Locomotion Model. Therobot is modeled like a unicycle and the social force f_(net) ^(r) istransformed into a compliant reference signal (v_(ref), w_(ref)) for alower-level velocity controller.

FIGS. 6A and 6B are diagrams illustrating backpropagation. In FIG. 6A,the forward propagated outcome of the sampled initial configuration isnot discouraging for the robot as it does not inconvenience eitheragent. For agents i={1,2}, the computed gradients ∇_(x) ₀ _(i) In(C(X))(Blue) drive the agents towards configurations where the robot wouldinconvenience them under its current policy while ∇_(x) ₀ _(i)In(P(x₀))(Green) drive them to more likely configurations. The agentscan be simultaneously updated resulting in a more influentialconfiguration as seen in FIG. 6B.

FIG. 7 is a graph depicting degradation of stochastic gradient ascent incrowded scenarios. For each algorithm, estimate the mean and standarderror of the number of iterations (forward simulations) taken todiscover an influential outcome varying the number of agents in therobot's vicinity, and thereby the dimensionality of the search space.The lower the slope, the better, more robust the algorithm to complexscenarios with high-dimensional search spaces. Random sampling, asexpected, requires many samples even in simpler configurations. SGAcannot find influential outcomes efficiently in complex scenarios withmultiple agents, scaling so poorly that for more than six agents itperforms worse than random sampling. BP is able to find those adverseoutcomes even for crowded scenarios with 8 people.

FIG. 8 is a graph comparing experimental results of the proposed methodto the stochastic gradient ascent approach. BP can evaluate 10 policiesreliably in real-time, while SGA cannot. Compare the performance ofvarious algorithms on 6 hours of navigation in the simulatedenvironment. Measure the Time Stopped for every goal reached as well asthe Blame per meter traveled by the robot. For each algorithm, usebootstrap sampling to estimate the mean and standard error for thesemetrics, represented by the axes of an ellipse. Lower the Blame or TimeStopped, the better. Run the simulator in real-time allowing a planningtime t_(p)=0.3 s. Although SGA can evaluate the smaller policy setreliably in real-time, the lack of options results in frequent Stopping.Unfortunately, SGA cannot evaluate a larger policy set of 10 policiesreliably and accumulates large Blame. Since BP can evaluate the largerpolicy set more quickly and reliably than SGA, the robot navigatessafely (low Blame) in real-time without Stopping unnecessarily. Uponslowing down the simulator (three times slower than real-time) to allowan unrealistic planning time of t_(p)=1 s, one observes that SGA with 10policies is able to drastically reduce Blame. However, even then BPoutperforms SGA.

FIG. 9 is a graph depicting real-work data from three repeatableexperiments. Real-world data was collected from three repeatableexperiments represented by different symbols 1) pedestrians crossingorthogonal to the robot's trajectory (+), 2) pedestrians crossing therobot's path obliquely at 45 degrees (Δ) and 3) pedestrians walkingslowly in front of the robot (star). Measure the Time Stopped for everygoal reached as well as the Blame per meter traveled by the robotaccumulated by inconveniencing pedestrians. Lower the Time Stopped andBlame, the better. The proposed approach (green) can evaluate morepolicies in real-time than earlier possible. With more candidatepolicies, the robot can find good policies and can navigate safelywithout stopping unnecessarily.

Corresponding reference numerals indicate corresponding parts throughoutthe several views of the drawings.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In a MPDM framework, a policy of a controlled object is selected bysampling from the distribution of current states, predicting futureoutcomes through forward simulation, and selecting the policy with themost favorable population of outcomes. Selecting the best policy dependson sampling initial conditions with influential outcomes.

The controlled object has a discrete number of policies to choose fromin an environment. The controlled object may be a vehicle, a robot, orany other autonomous object that is configured to move through anenvironment. Instead of selecting a particular trajectory, thecontrolled object can choose from a set of policies that provide arulebook for the controlled object to follow. For example, one of thepolicies may be to follow a monitored object in the environment. Whenthe controlled object is instructed to follow the particular monitoredobject, the controlled object's trajectory is not predetermined but isdependent on the particular monitored object.

The model of the environment consists of static obstacles (e.g., wallsor doors) and a set of freely moving dynamic agents, assumed to bepeople.

The robot maintains estimates of the states of observable agents. Thex_(i)∈X_(i) for agent i (including the robot) consists of its positionp_(i), velocity v_(i), and a goal point g_(i).

x_(i)=[p_(i), v_(i), g_(i)]^(T)   (1)

where each of p_(i), v_(i), g_(i) are two-dimensional vectors. Themotion of agents is modeled according to a simple dynamics model inwhich acceleration, integrated over time, results in a velocity. Theforce, and hence the acceleration is computed using a potential fieldmethod that incorporates the effects of obstacles and a goal point.

Let N be the number of agents including the robot. The joint state spaceof the system is

=

₁×

₂× . . . ×

_(N). The collective state x(t)∈X includes the robot state plus all theagents visible to the robot at time t.

Our observation model P (z|x) is assumed to be Markovian, where thejoint observations z are the pedestrians' positions. For eachpedestrian, the goal g_(i) is not directly observable through z. It isassumed to be one of a small set of salient points and is estimatedusing a naive Bayes Classifier. For the robot, the goal g_(r) isprovided by a higher level planner.

The agent dynamics are defined by the following differentialconstraints:

{dot over (x)} _(i) =[v _(i) , a _(i), 0]^(T),   (2)

The action a_(i)∈A_(i) corresponds to the acceleration governing thesystem dynamics and is determined by the policy ξi followed by theagent.

The transition function maps a given state a_(i) to a new state T:

_(i)×

×

X_(i) Thus, the corresponding transition equation is expressed as

T(x _(i) , a _(i))=x _(i)(t+Δt)=x _(i)(t)+˜_(t) ^(t+Δt) {dot over (x)}_(i)(r, a _(i))dτ  (3)

In an example embodiment, a discrete set of high-level closed-looppolicies is presented.

ξ={Go−Solo, Follow_(j), Stop},   (4)

where Follow_(j) refers to the policy of following agent j. A robot inan environment with 10 observable agents has a total of 12 candidatepolicies. Each policy maps a joint state of the system to an action viaa potential field ξi∈ξ:

A_(i).

An agent executing the Go-Solo policy treats all other agents asobstacles and uses a potential field based on the Social Force Model(SFM) to guide it towards its goal. Let e_(pi)→g_(i) be the unit vectortowards the goal from the agent i. The attractive force acting on theagent is given by:

∫_(i) ^(attr)(x)=k _(gs) e _(i→g) _(i)   (5)

The interactions with other agents in the scene are modeled based on theSFM:

∫_(i,j) ^(int)(x)=a _(p) ^(−d) ^(i,j) ^(/b) ^(p) ·e _(j→i)   (6)

where {p1, b_(p)} are the SFM parameters for people, e_(j→i) is the unitvector from j to i and d_(i,j) is the distance between them scaled by ananisotropic factor.

Similarly, each obstacle o∈O in the neighborhood of the agent exerts arepuslive force ∫_(i,o) ^(obs)(x) on agent i according to different SFMparameters {a_(o), b_(o)},

∫_(i,o) ^(obs)(x)=a _(o)e^(−di,o/bo) ·e _(o→i)   (7)

The resultant force is a summation of all the forces described above:

f _(i)(x)=f _(i) ^(attr)(x)+Σ_(j≠i) ^(f) ^(i,j) ^(int) +Σ_(o∈O) ^(f)^(i,o) ^(obs)   (8)

The action governing the system propagation (2) is calculated asa_(i)=f_(i) (without loss of generality, assume unit mass). In oneexample, it is assumed that all agents besides the robot always use thisGo-Solo policy. In other examples, the policy of the agents areestimated by the robot.

In addition to the Go-Solo policy, the robot can use the Follow policyto deal with certain situations. The intuition is that in a crowd, therobot may choose to Follow another person sacrificing speed butdelegating the task of finding a path to a human. Following could alsobe more suitable than overtaking a person in a cluttered scenario as itallows the robot to Progress towards its goal without disturbing otheragents (low Force). A reactive Follow policy is proposed, making minormodifications to the Go-Solo policy.

According to the Follow policy, the robot r chooses to follow anotheragent, the leader, denoted by 1. In this case, the robot is attracted tothe leader rather than the goal. Let e_(p) _(r) _(→p) _(l) be the unitvector from the robot's position to the leader's position. Theattractive force

f _(r) ^(attr)(x)=k _(f) e _(p) _(r) =p _(l),   (9)

steers the robot trajectory towards the leader. The other agents andobstacles continue to repel the robot as described in (8),

The last of the policies available to the robot is the Stop policy,where the robot decelerates until it comes to a complete stop, accordingto the following force

f_(r)(x)=−f_(max)e_(y) _(r) ,   (10)

where e_(v) _(r) is the unit vector in the direction of the robot'svelocity. It is understood that other types of policies fall within thescope of this disclosure.

To prevent the controlled object from causing disruptions in theenvironment, it is necessary to discover likely catastrophic outcomes,such as collisions, occurring when each policy is being implemented.Previously, random sampling has been used to predict potential outcomes.Random sampling is conducted based on a position of the controlledobject and the monitored objects. However, discovering likelycatastrophic outcomes through random sampling is computationallyexpensive as it is likely to miss high-cost events, even if they arereasonably probable, because of the scarcity of such configurations inthe environment. That is, catastrophic or high-cost events may have ahigh probability density on an individual basis, but when evaluating alloccurrences of these high cost events, the total probability mass islow.

Therefore, instead of random sampling, influential outcomes can beidentified by perturbing configurations of the controlled and monitoredobjects iteratively towards those influential outcomes. By locatinginfluential outcomes, the controlled object identifies more high-costevents or worst case scenarios. Then the controlled object may selectthe policy whose population of discovered likely high-cost outcomes ismore benign or desirable. That is, the controlled object is evaluatingthe quality of each decision available and selecting the decision withthe fewest bad outcomes.

Referring to FIG. 1, a block diagram of an embodiment of a MPDMapparatus on a controlled object 100 is illustrated. The controlledobject 100 includes a controller 104 and a data store 108. Thecontroller 104 generally includes a perception module 112, a seed stategenerator 116, a simulator 120, a perturbing module 124, and an outcomequantifier 128, and the data store 108 includes probabilitydistributions 132 and policies 136. In this application, including thedefinitions below, the term “module” or the term “controller” may bereplaced with the term “circuit.” The term “module” may refer to, bepart of, or include: an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC);a digital, analog, or mixed analog/digital discrete circuit; a digital,analog, or mixed analog/digital integrated circuit; a combinationallogic circuit; a field programmable gate array (FPGA); a processorcircuit (shared, dedicated, or group) that executes code; a memorycircuit (shared, dedicated, or group) that stores code executed by theprocessor circuit; other suitable hardware components that provide thedescribed functionality; or a combination of some or all of the above,such as in a system-on-chip.

The controller 104 is configured to issue a command to the controlledobject 100. The command is determined by the policy 136 the controlledobject 100 has determined to be the best policy based on the currentstate of the controlled object 100 and the states of a plurality ofmonitored objects existing in an environment. For example, theenvironment may be a hallway, a large room, or any other area withstatic obstacles. The environment may also consist of freely movingdynamic agents known as monitored objects. The monitored objects includethose objects, agents, vehicles, humans, etc. that move freely andindependent of the controlled object 100. It is possible to trackmonitored objects and estimate their state. The perception module 112estimates a distribution over the state of each monitored object withina certain vicinity of the controlled object 100. It is impossible toaccurately predict the future motion of the monitored objects. Given astate for the monitored objects, through the seed state generator 116 orthe perturbing module 124, the simulator 120 predicts an outcome. It isenvisioned that the objects monitored by the MPDM apparatus can accountfor stationary and/or moving objects.

The perception module 112 locates the monitored objects in theenvironment and maintains an estimate of a state for each of themonitored objects. The state for each monitored objects includes a valuefor the position, speed, and an inferred goal (or policy). The stateinformation for each monitored object may be defined with respect to thecontrolled object 100. For example, once identified, one monitoredobject may be a certain distance from the controlled object 100 andtravelling at a certain speed with respect to the controlled object 100.The motion of the monitored objects is modeled according to a simpledynamics model in which acceleration, integrated over time, results in avelocity. The force, and hence the acceleration, is computed using apotential field method that incorporates the effects of obstacles andthe inferred goal point. Other types of motion models are alsocontemplated by this disclosure.

The controlled object 100 maintains the estimate of the monitoredobject's perceived location and speed through the perception module 112.The perception module 112 identifies and evaluates the array of statevalues for each monitored object for use during forward simulations. Theperceived state values provide a configuration of the environment as afunction of time. For the controlled object 100 to decide which policy136 is best to avoid any catastrophic or high-cost events, thecontrolled object 100 determines, in real-time, out of all the possibletrajectory iterations based on the initial configuration, which policy136 is least likely to result in a high-cost event, such as a collision.Further details regarding determining the initial configuration of theenvironment is discussed in U.S. patent application Nos. 14/814,766,14/814,856, and 14/814,630, all filed Jul. 31, 2015 and eachincorporated by reference in their entirety.

For each monitored object, the inferred goal is not directly observablethrough the positions of the monitored objects. It is assumed to be oneof a small set of salient points and is estimated using a naive BayesClassifier. For the controlled object 100, the goal is provided by ahigher level planner.

The seed state generator 116 receives the states for each of themonitored objects from the perception module 112. The seed stategenerator 116 determines the initial sampling states. For example, basedon the initial configuration estimated by the perception module 112, theseed state generator 116 determines the state values at which to beginthe forward simulations based on the estimated position of all theperceived monitored objects. The seed state generator 116 samples aninitial configuration from the environment based on the state of eachobject.

In alternative applications, Monte Carlo sampling from the posteriordistribution of the states of all objects was used to approximate anexpected cost for a simulation. To ensure that high-cost events arerecognized and not missed during random sampling, the seed stategenerator 116 identifies influential outcomes. In other words,influential or high-cost outcomes are explicitly searched for andsimulated as high-cost outcomes more strongly influence decision-makingof the controlled object 100. For instance, as described in more detailbelow, state elements (e.g., position, speed, etc.) of the current stateof each object may be perturbed while sampling to find high valueoutcomes (i.e., the product of the probability and the cost). Instead ofrandom sampling from the posterior distribution, an optimization processis instituted to construct bad outcomes. In one embodiment, an anytimealgorithm is used to optimize and discover influential configurations.In another embodiment, backpropagation can be used to discoverinfluential outcomes as further described below. Optimizing bydiscovering influential outcomes lessens the number of sampling requiredand increases the likelihood of discovering bad outcomes. Theinfluential outcomes indicate how to perturb the state elements of theseed states. Once perturbed, the perturbed inputs are run through thesimulator 120. The perturbed inputs, like the seed states, are put intothe outcome quantifier 128 to determine perturbed outcomes as theproduct of the perturbed probability and the perturbed cost. Theperturbed cost is determined using the cost function and the perturbedprobability is determined from the probability distributions 132.

Further details for an example embodiment of the MPDM system are setforth. In this embodiment, non-holonomic motion models are used for eachobserved agent i as well as for the robot. The robot maintains aprobabilistic estimate of each observed agents' state—i.e. its position,velocity, angular velocity and inferred policy. An agent's policyπ_(i)=(V_(des),g_(sub)), expresses an intent to move towards sub-goalg_(sub) at a desired speed v_(des). The collective state x_(t)∈Xconsists of the states of the robot and all observed agents at time t.Throughout the disclosure, x₀ is referred to as the collective state ofall agents and the robot's state at the current time. The probabilisticestimate P(x₀) is based on past observations of the pedestrians'positions. Several methods can be used for P(x₀) based on pasttrajectories of agents. In the example embodiment, a Kalman Filter isused to infer position and velocity; whereas, a Naïve Bayes Classifieris used to infer an agent's policy. The robot's policy π is elected fromamongst a set of closed-loop policies π.

An initial sampled configuration x₀ is forward simulated H time-steps(through t=1, . . . , H), by recursively applying the transitionfunction T: X→X to yield a trajectory

$\begin{matrix}{{X\left( x_{0} \right)} = \left\{ {x_{0},{T\left( x_{0} \right)},{T^{2}\left( x_{0} \right)},\ldots \mspace{14mu},{T^{H}\left( x_{0} \right)}} \right\}} \\{{= \left\{ {x_{0},x_{1},x_{2},{\ldots \mspace{14mu} x_{H}}} \right\}},}\end{matrix}$

where x_(t)∈X is the collective state consisting of the robot state plusall the agents at time t of the forward simulation. The transitionfunction T( ) captures the trajectory that each agent is executing whileat the same time considering the interactions with all other agents.

The cost function C(X(x₀)) assigns a scalar value to the outcome of asimulation. In the example embodiment, a cost function is used thatpenalizes the inconvenience the robot causes to other agents in theenvironment (Blame) along the predicted trajectory and rewards therobot's progress towards its goal (Progress). For blame, one can use thedistance to the closest agent as a proxy for the potential disturbancecaused to the environment by the robot.

${B\left( {X\left( {\pi,x_{0}} \right)} \right)} = {\sum\limits_{k = 0}^{s}\; {\max\limits_{j \neq r}{{u\left( {{v_{r}} - \epsilon} \right)}e^{{- {d_{r,j}{(k)}}}/\sigma}}}}$

where d_(r,j)(k) is the distance between the robot and agent j and∥v_(r)(k)∥ is the speed of the robot at time-step k. u is the stepfunction with is 1 when the argument is ≥0 and 0-otherwise.

For progress, the robot is encouraged for the distance-made-good duringthe planning horizon.

PG(X(π, x ₀))=(p _(r)(s)−p _(r)(0))·e _(p) _(r) _(→g) _(r)

where p_(r)(k) is the position of the robot at time-step k and e_(p)_(r) _(→g) _(r) is the unit vector from the current position of therobot to the goal g_(r). The resultant cost function is a linearcombination of both

C(X(π, x ₀))=−αPG(X(π, x ₀))+B(X(π, x ₀))

where α is a weighting factor. Other cost functions are alsocontemplated by this disclosure.

In risk-aware MPDM, the robot's policies are evaluated based on the mostinfluential (likely and high-cost) outcome that may occur. Such outcomesare discovered by optimizing a probabilistic cost surface max{P(x₀)C(X(π, x0)}, instead of the expected value of the cost functionapproximated by sampling.

Algorithm 1 below describes the policy election for risk-aware MPDM.Provided with a probability distribution over initial configurations,P(x₀), a set of candidate policies, π, and a forward simulation budget,Nπ, each candidate policy is evaluated (scored) according to the mostinfluential (worst case) outcome discovered within the computationalbudget.

The objective function P(x₀)C(X) can have multiple local-minimadepending on the number of agents and the complexity of the initialconfiguration. Finding the global maximum through exhaustive search iscomputationally infeasible due to the large state-space. The goal is toquickly find an influential configuration whose value is comparable tothe global optimum even if it may not be the highest-valuedconfiguration.

The following Algorithm 1 describes the policy election for risk-awareMPDM, that is, Algorithm 1 identifies influential or worse caseoutcomes.

Algorithm 1 Policy Election for Risk-aware MPDM 1:   functionPolicy-Election Loop (P (x), Π, N_(π)) 2:    for π = Π do 3:    Initialize U_(π) n ← 0 4:     while n < N_(π) do 5:      Samplex₀~P(x) 6:      U*, n_(opt) ← Optimize (x₀, π) 7:      n ← n + n_(opt)8:      U_(π) ← max{U*, U_(π)} 9:     end while 10:   end for 11:   π* ←arg min_(π)U_(π) 12: end function

The algorithm samples an initial configuration from P(x₀) as indicate atline 5 and optimizes it, perturbing the sampled configurationiteratively towards increasingly influential outcomes until convergenceto a local optima whose objective function value is U* as indicated atline 6. The number of forward simulations n_(opt) used by anoptimization procedure corresponds to its rate of convergence. Uponconvergence, a new initial configuration is sampled and this process isrepeated until the forward simulation budget N_(π), is consumed. Theutility of a policy U_(π) is the most influential (highest-valued)configuration encountered. The policy with the least risk is elected.

With continued reference to FIG. 1, provided with a probabilitydistribution over initial configurations P(x₀), where x₀ represents thestate elements of all the objects at a current time, a set of candidatepolicies π 136, and a forward simulations budget N_(π), each candidatepolicy 136 is evaluated and scored according to the most influential orworst case outcome discovered within the computational budget. Theoutcome (e.g., the product of the probability and cost) has multiplelocal minima depending on the number of objects and the complexity ofthe initial configuration. Finding the global maximum through exhaustivesearch is computationally infeasible due to the large state-space. Sincethe collisions are heavily penalized, a configuration whose value iscomparable to the global optimum is likely to be a collision and shouldtherefore influence decision-making.

The simulator 120 is provided the seed states from the seed stategenerator 116 as further described below. Based on the seed states, thesimulator 120 conducts forward simulations of a joint state until a timehorizon. The joint state is the state values for all of the monitoredobjects and the controlled object 100. The simulator 120 simulates theforward movement of each object in the environment for each of thepotential policies 136 guiding the controlled object 100. The forwardsimulation allows for the controlled object 100 to execute each of thepossible policies 136 and iterate through all of the possible scenariosfor each of the monitored objects that are perceivable by the controlledobject 100. That is, the simulator 120 forward simulates each of thepossible variations of movements for each of the monitored objects whilethe controlled object 100 is executing different policies 136. With eachsimulation, a cost and a probability may be determined for each of thepolicies 136. The probability may be determined from the probabilitydistributions 132 included in the data store 108. The probability isbased on the generated seed states.

The cost for each seed state and each policy 136 is calculated using acost function. The cost function consists of two different components:(i) blame which captures the potential disturbance that the robot causesin the environment and (ii) progress which indicates progress madetowards the goal of the controlled object 100. The distance between thecontrolled object 100 and the closest monitored object is used as aproxy for the potential disturbance caused to the environment by thecontrolled object 100. The controlled object 100 is also encouraged forthe distance-made-good during a planning horizon. For a sampled initialconfiguration, the predicted trajectory is evaluated using a costfunction. High value outcomes correspond to those where the controlledobject 100 inconveniences monitored objects by driving too close tothem, thus accumulating high blame. The controlled object 100 is alsorewarded according to the progress it makes towards the goal.

The planning horizon is the amount of time into the future the simulator120 predicts or simulates movement, e.g., three seconds. The costfunction is calculated as a linear combination of both the blame and theprogress. Additionally, to approximate the expected cost, a samplingtechnique is used. The sampling technique seeds the forward propagationof the joint state, which results in a set of different futuretrajectories. Therefore, the controlled object's 100 behavior reflectsnot only the mean state estimates of monitored objects, but also theuncertainty associated with the mean state estimates.

The outcome quantifier 128 calculates an outcome as a product of theprobability and the cost for the generated seed state. The outcomeindicates a score based on the policy 136 and the seed states. The scoredetermines how good or bad choosing the respective policy 136 is underthe seed state conditions. This forward simulation is conductediteratively for each policy 136 and for many seed states to determinewhich policy 136 is most ideal under the presented conditions orconfigurations.

The perturbing module 124 also receives the seed states from the seedstate generator 116 and perturbs these states. The perturbing module 124optimizes the seed states by perturbing the seed states iterativelytowards increasingly influential outcomes. An optimization procedureshould converge in as few forward simulations (or iterations) aspossible to its closest local optima.

Backpropagation may be used to perturb the seed states iterativelytowards increasingly influential outcomes. Deep neural networks modelcomplex functions by composing (chaining) relatively simple functions.Similarly, a forward simulation captures the complex dynamics of thesystem using simple one-step transition functions. Since the costfunction is a linear combination of costs computed along the trajectory,the forward simulation can be conceptualized as a deep network thatoutputs a trajectory cost C(X(x₀)) based on the input initialconfiguration. A function can accumulate the cost of a trajectory fromthe final time backwards to the initial time. This backpropagation canidentify the most influential outcomes by starting at the final time andfinding the trajectory to work backwards to the initial configuration.

Let L_(t)(x_(t)) be the cost accrued at time-step t for the state x_(t).Define a function Φ(t, X) that accumulates the cost of a trajectory,from the final time H backwards to the initial time t=0 as

Φ(t, X)=Σ_(T=t) ^(H)L_(T)(x_(T))   (11)

The objective cost can be expressed as (X)=Φ(0,X). One can formulate Φrecursively as:

Φ(t,X)=Φ(t+1,X)+L _(t)(x _(t)).   (12)

One would want to compute ∇x₀C(X)=∇x₀Φ(0,X). The gradient of the cost attime-step H is

$\begin{matrix}{{\bigtriangledown \; x_{H}{\Phi \left( {H,X} \right)}} = {\frac{\partial{\Phi \left( {H,X} \right)}}{\partial x_{H}} = \frac{\left. {{\partial L_{H}},X_{H}} \right)}{\partial x_{H}}}} & (13)\end{matrix}$

One can compute the gradient iteratively from time-step H backwards tot=0 by applying (12) and expanding terms:Eqn. 14 can be used to efficiently compute ∇x₀C(X) as long as thegradient of transition function can be computed effectively.

This disclosure recognizes that the kinematic models used for the agentshave an impact on the quality of the gradients. An alternative approachcan use a simple double integrator model for all agents with heuristicsto restrict lateral motion for more realistic simulation. While thesimple model was useful for fast forward simulation, the heuristicscontain hard thresholds that manifest as zeros in the matrix

$\frac{\partial{T\left( x_{t} \right)}}{\partial x_{t}}.$

As a result, useful gradients are truncated (as highlighted by the boxin Eqn. 14 hampering effective backpropagation. Thus, the usenon-holonomic kinematic models that augment the agent's state withangular velocity to capture the effect of lateral forces is preferred.This model ensures the differentiability of T while maintainingrealistic human motion in the forward simulation.

Specifically, the headed social force model (HSFM) is used for all thepedestrians and a unicycle-like model for the robot as described below.For the robot, the net force is computed using the SFM f_(net) ^(r), butdue to the inherent constraints on a wheeled platform, transform f_(net)^(r) into a compliant reference signal (V_(ref), W_(ref)) for alower-level velocity controller

$\begin{matrix}{\begin{matrix}v_{ref} \\w_{{ref}_{t + 1}}\end{matrix} = {{\begin{bmatrix}{\cos (\theta)} & {\sin (\theta)} \\{- {\sin (\theta)}} & {\cos (\theta)}\end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix}1 & 0 \\0 & 1\end{bmatrix}}f_{net}^{r}}} & (15)\end{matrix}$

The lookahead distance l determines the tendency of the robot to turn tocompensate the lateral force. The robot's state is then propagatedtowards the reference signal using a first-order model for each of theindependent wheel velocity controllers and a unicycle plant model.

Referring to FIG. 5, the proposed transition function layer T(x _(t) )allows one to compute accurate gradients of the transition function.Eqn. 14 can now be implemented efficiently via backpropagation, where

$\frac{\partial{T\left( x_{t} \right)}}{\partial x_{t}}\mspace{14mu} {and}\mspace{14mu} \frac{\partial{L_{t}\left( x_{t} \right)}}{\partial x_{t}}$

are computed during the forward propagation and cached.

FIG. 6A and 6B illustrate one iteration of gradient descent usingbackpropagation through a simple initial configuration x₀ consisting oftwo agents and the robot executing the Go-Solo policy towards its goalg_(r). The heuristic-based stochastic gradient method (SGA) computedapproximate gradients for each agent and perturbed one agent at a timeto avoid divergence. In contrast, by computing accurate gradients, onecan perturb all the agents simultaneously without divergence. Thegradient also accounts for agent-agent interactions as well as staticobstacles.

Backpropagation, or any other method known in the art to identifyinfluential outcomes, can be used to perturb the seed states andsimulate using the perturbed seed states. The forward simulation of theperturbed seed state results in a perturbed outcome. The plurality ofoutcomes (product of probability and cost) for each of the possiblepolicies 136 are used to identify which policy 136 has the best worstcase scenario. That is, the best worst case scenario is, out of all theforward simulations for each of the policies 136, the policy that hasthe best or most benign high-cost scenarios, including near misses. Oncethe best policy is identified, the controller 104 issues a command basedon the selected policy.

There may be any number of policies 136 included in the data store 108.In the example embodiment, the policies 136 are go solo, follow one ofthe monitored objects, and stop. The controlled object 100 executing thego solo policy treats all monitored objects as obstacles and uses apotential field based on a Social Force Model (SFM) to guide it towardsthe goal of the controlled object 100. The SFM is described in“Social-aware robot navigation in urban environments,” in EuropeanConference on Mobile Robotics, by G. Ferrer, A. Garrell, and A.Sanfeliu, 2013, pp. 331-336, which is incorporated by reference. In thisembodiment, it is assumed that all monitored objects follow the go solopolicy although policies of the monitored object may be inferred inother embodiments.

The controlled object 100 can also use the follow policy to deal withcertain situations. In a crowd, the controlled object 100 may choose tofollow one of the monitored objects sacrificing speed but delegating thetask of finding a path to another object. Following could also be moresuitable than overtaking the monitored object in a cluttered scenario asit allows the controlled object 100 to progress towards its goal withoutdisturbing other agents, resulting in low blame.

According to the follow policy, the controlled object 100 chooses tofollow one of the monitored objects, deemed a leader. The follow policydictates that the controlled object 100 is attracted to the leaderrather than the goal. The stop policy simply instructs the controlledobject 100 to remain still. As the controlled object 100 is determiningin real time which policy 136 results in the most benign high-costscenarios, the policy 136 of the controlled object 100 is constantlychanging and being reevaluated. Due to the low computationalrequirements of evaluating the set of policies 136, the controlledobject 100 can re-plan frequently. Frequent re-planning helps reduce theimpact of uncertainty.

Referring now to FIG. 2, a diagram of an environment where a controlledobject 100 would institute MPDM is illustrated. The environment includesthe controlled object 100, walls 204 or any kind of static object, afirst monitored object 208, a second monitored object 212, and a target216 or goal for the controlled object 100 to reach. As described withrespect to FIG. 1, the controlled object 100 includes the controller 104coupled to the data store 108. In the environment, the controlled object100 identifies the walls 204, the first monitored object 208, and thesecond monitored object 212 with the perception module 112.

The perception module 112 determines values indicating position,velocity, and inferred goals for both of the monitored objects 208, 212.The determined values are states for the monitored objects 208, 212.Since the monitored objects 208, 212 move freely through theenvironment, each monitored object's 208, 212 goal cannot be perceived,only predicted. Additionally, each monitored object 208, 212 has anunlimited number of trajectory options, some options are shown in FIG.2. The first monitored object 208 has multiple options of trajectories220, 224 that the controlled object 100 must evaluate, and the secondmonitored object 212 has multiple trajectories 228, 232 that thecontrolled object 100 must evaluate as well.

Based on the position, velocity, and inferred goal, the seed stategenerator 116 samples initial configurations or seed states of themonitored objects 208, 212 to use during simulations of each policy 136.The simulator 120 determines a result or outcome of a scenario using thesampled initial configurations for each of the potential policies 136.The perturbing module 124 then perturbs the initial configurations tocreate a worse outcome or a higher-cost event. The perturbing may beconducted using a number of known methods in the art, one of which isbackpropagation, as discussed above. After perturbing the initialconfigurations, the simulator 120 conducts the simulation on theperturbed states, and then, with the outcome quantifier 128, determinesthe outcome of the perturbed scenario. The initial configurations areperturbed and simulated for a predetermined period.

The predetermined period may be an amount of time that the controlledobject 100 has to select a policy or a certain number of iterationsbefore selecting a policy. After conducting simulations for thepredetermined period, the controlled object 100 selects the policy whosepopulation of discovered likely high-cost outcomes is more benign ordesirable. That is, the selected policy includes the most benign worstcase, high-cost events. Selecting one of the policies results in thecontrolled object 100 following one of multiple trajectories 236, 240.To advance toward the target 216, the controlled object 100 maydetermine that going solo may be the policy with the most benignhigh-cost events, which may result in a direct trajectory toward thetarget 236. Alternatively, the controlled object 100 may determine thatfollowing either the first monitored object 208 or the second monitoredobject 212 would result in the most benign high-cost events. Followingthe first monitored object 208 may result in a trajectory such as 240,with the controlled object 100 accelerating to catch up behind the firstmonitored object 208 and remaining behind the first monitored object ata similar speed. As another option, the controlled object 100 may stopand stay in place until a different policy results in the most benignhigh-cost events.

Once the policy is selected, a command is issued to the controlledobject 100, such as change a trajectory to follow one of the one or moremonitored objects, remain in the same position, move forward,decelerate; accelerate, or any other directive in accordance with thepolicy. Since the controlled object 100 is selecting policies in realtime, the controlled object 100 is always computing which of thepolicies result in the most benign high-cost events and updating whichpolicy to adhere to in accordance with the computations.

Referring now to FIG. 3, a flowchart of an embodiment of the MPDMapparatus is illustrated. The controlled object 100 is always perceivingthe states (e.g., locations, speed, etc.) of all the monitored objectsin the environment and determining a trajectory based on the possibleoutcomes due to the initial configurations. To determine the trajectory,the controlled object 100 evaluates each of the policies 136. Firstcontrol chooses a policy to evaluate 300 from all of the potentialpolicies 136. Next, at step 304, control receives state data for each ofthe monitored objects 208, 212. The state data is obtained by theperception module 112. Seed states for each of the monitored objects208, 212 are generated at 308 using the seed state generator 116. Theseed states correspond to initial configurations that the simulationsuse as input. The simulator 120 then simulates using the chosen policyand the seed states at 312. At step 316, the outcome is quantified asthe cost multiplied by the probability using the outcome quantifier 128.As discussed above, the cost function is calculated as a combination ofblame for disturbing objects in the environment as well as progresstowards the target 216. The probability is determined from theprobability distributions 132.

At step 320, control determines whether a condition has been met. Thecondition may be a variety of predetermined conditions, such as anamount of time, a number of perturbations or iterations, apolicy-specific condition depending on which policy is currently beingimplemented by the controlled object 100, or any other condition thathas been predetermined. In other words, step 320 controls the number oftimes the seed states are perturbed and simulated to determine whichpolicy results in the most benign high-cost events.

If the condition has not been met, control continues to step 324 wherethe seed states are perturbed. That is, the elements of the seed states(i.e., position, speed, etc.) are perturbed iteratively towardsincreasingly influential outcomes using a method such asbackpropagation. This perturbation directs the perturbed seed stateconfigurations towards outcomes that result in high-cost events. Then,at 328, the simulator 120 simulates using the chosen policy and theperturbed seed states. The outcome quantifier 128 then quantifies aperturbed outcome as the product of the perturbed cost and the perturbedprobability at 332. The perturbed cost and perturbed probability aredetermined based on the perturbed seed states. The seed states areperturbed iteratively towards increasingly influential outcomes untilthe condition has been met. At that point, control determines whethereach policy 136 has been simulated 336. If not, control returns to thebeginning to select a different policy at 200.

Once control determines that each policy has been simulated at 336, thenscores are determined for each policy at 340. The policy with the bestscore is selected at 344. The best score can be described as the scoreindicating the fewest number of the most benign high-cost events. Thisensures the best possible scenario for the controlled object 100. Thatis, the controlled object 100 selects the policy whose population ofdiscovered likely high-cost outcomes is more benign or desirable. Forexample, a more desirable policy includes a lower chance that theselected policy will result in a collision or a near miss, etc. Once thepolicy is selected, control issues a command associated with the policyto the controlled object 100 at 348. As mentioned previously, thecommands may be a command to accelerate, decelerate, etc. Controlconducts the MPDM shown in the flowchart in real-time to determine, atall points in time, which policy 136 is best for the controlled object100 to follow.

As a proof of concept, simulations were conducted. The simulatedenvironment consists of an open space, freely traversed by 15 agentsthat can randomly change speed or direction while the robot tries toreach its goal. MPDM relies on quick decision making and replanning(every 300 nms) to react to sudden and unexpected changes in theenvironment.

A pedestrian can suddenly come to a stop, slow down or speed up. One canmodel this as a distribution over the preferred speed of each agent thatis a mixture of two truncated Gaussians—one centered around theestimated most-likely current speed with a σ=0.4 m /s to account forspeeding up or slowing down and a truncated half Gaussian with a peak at0 and σ=0.2 m/s to account for coming to a sudden stop.

A pedestrian can also suddenly change direction without signaling. Inorder to account for uncertain direction for each agent, the robotassumes a Gaussian centered around the agent's estimated most-likelyorientation and σ=30° that determines the agent's waypoint. Alltruncated Gaussians are restricted to μ±1.5σ. A pedestrian's sub-goal isinferred from a set of salient points using a Naive Bayes classifier.

For a sampled initial configuration, the predicted trajectory isevaluated using a cost function. High-cost outcomes correspond to thosewhere the robot inconveniences other agents by driving too close tothem, thus accumulating high Blame. The robot is also rewarded accordingto the Progress it makes towards the goal. Further description for thesemetrics can be found in “Fast discovery of influential outcomes forrisk-aware MPDM” in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference onRobotics and Automation, 2017 which is incorporated in its entirety byreference.

A dataset is generated consisting of 16,000 randomly chosen simulatedscenarios where at least one agent was present within 5 m of the robot.Then sort them based on the number of agents in the robot'sneighbourhood. The objective function P(x₀)C(X) is defined overinnumerable possible initial configurations belonging to ahigh-dimensional continuous space that scales linearly with the numberof agents considered. For each scenario, 2,000 random samples wereoptimized and the worst-case outcome was used to approximate the globaloptimum.

Next, vary the number of agents in the robot's vicinity, thus increasingthe complexity of the scenario and the dimensionality of the statespace. For reliable real-time policy evaluation, influential outcomesmust be detected quickly. Estimate the number of iterations needed byeach algorithm to achieve a certain fraction (50%) of the worst outcomein the dataset (find an influential outcome). For each algorithm, theexperiment is run 1,000 times on each scenario. Use bootstrap sampling(with replacement) on the data set to estimate the mean and standarderror of their performance.

Stochastic Gradient Ascent computes approximate agent-specific gradientsof a simplified cost function. In order to limit the divergence arisingdue to these approximations, the stochastic gradients are ranked using aheuristic function and only the most promising agent is perturbed at atime. Despite performing well in scenarios involving few agents, thismethod does not scale well to more challenging crowded settings. FIG. 7shows that although all the algorithms take longer to find influentialoutcomes as the complexity of the environment grows, the performance ofSGA deteriorates sharply for more than 3 agents. Beyond 6 agents, itperforms as poorly as random sampling since it takes a long time toconverge from a sampled initial configuration to a local optimum.Backpropagation, on the other hand, overcomes these limitations as itcomputes accurate gradients, and all agents can simultaneously beupdated without divergence.

Through six hours of navigation in the simulated environment, it wasdemonstrated that the proposed approach, unlike SGA, can reliablyevaluate a large policy set. Each simulation ‘epoch’ consists of arandom initialization of agent states followed by a 5 minute simulatedrun at a granularity Δt=0.15 s. In the simulator, the observations z aremodeled using a stationary Gaussian distribution with uncorrelatedvariables for position, speed and orientation for the agent.Parameterize this uncertainty by a scale factor {σ_(p) _(x) , σ_(p) _(y), σ_(|v|), σ_(θ)}={10 cm, 10 cm, 10 cm/s, 15°}. The correspondingdiagonal covariance matrix is denoted by diag (σ_(p) _(x) , σ_(p) _(y) ,σ_(|v|), σ_(θ)) Do not perturb the goal and assume no angular velocity(ignoring any uncertainty). These uncertainties are propagated in theposterior state estimation P(x|z).

The simulation experiments are run on an Intel i7 processor and 8 GB RAMto mimic the computational capabilities of the robot. In order to reactto sudden changes, MPDM relies on quick re-planning. The robot mustreplan every 300 ms for effective real-time navigation. The performanceof risk-aware MPDM is evaluated using 2 candidate sets of policies—alarge candidate set with 10 policies, and a small set with 2 policies:

-   -   1) 2 Policies—{Go-Solo, Stop}—The robot evaluates going straight        towards the goal at maximum speed (1.5 m /s) and stops if it        senses danger.    -   2) 10 Policies—{(Fast, Medium, Slow)×(Straight, Left, Right),        Stop}—Rather than going straight towards the goal at maximum        speed, the MPDM may also choose to go at Medium speed (0.9 m /s)        or Slowly (0.2 m/ s). Simultaneously, the robot can also choose        to create a sub-goal to the Left or Right of the goal instead of        going Straight to the goal as in Go-Solo.

Record the Time Stopped per goal reached, as well as the Blamenormalized by the distance to goal (Blame per meter traveled). TimeStopped indicates the failure of the planner to find a safe policy. Witha larger policy set, the robot is more likely to find a safe policy, andStops less often. However, if the robot cannot evaluate its policy setquickly enough, it is unable to react to sudden changes in theenvironment and accumulates Blame. Ideally, one would like a robotnavigate safely (low Blame), with minimal Stop-and-Go motion.

FIG. 8 shows how the inefficiencies in SGA become a performancebottleneck. While SGA can navigate safely (low Blame) with the smallpolicy set, it often fails to find safe policies and stops. With 10policies, SGA fails to find influential outcomes fast enough resultingin high Blame. The proposed method, BP can reliably evaluate the largepolicy set in real -time, which significantly improves navigationperformance.

In the example embodiment, the system is implemented on the MAGIC robot,a differential drive platform equipped with a Velodyne VLP-16 laserscanner used for tracking and localization. LCM is used forinter-process communication. Every 300 ms, MPDM evaluates a set ofpolicies and chooses the least risky one. Although the policy electionis slow, the robot is responsive as the policies themselves run at 50Hz.

Seven volunteers were asked to move towards marked points around an openspace for 45 minutes. FIG. 9 shows data from 90 minutes of real -worldexperiments in which volunteers were asked to repeat three fixedscenarios while the robot made its way towards its goal. For both, ourproposed approach as well as SGA, each scenario was repeated for 15minutes. As observed in simulation, SGA was too slow to evaluate thelarger policy set reliably and was unsafe to deploy on our robot. UsingSGA with two policies (purple), the robot fails to find safe policiesand stops often. Our proposed method (green) can reliably evaluate 10policies in real -time (similar Blame as compared to SGA with just twopolicies) and as a result, it is more likely to find safe policies (lowTime Stopped).

The foregoing description is merely illustrative in nature and is in noway intended to limit the disclosure, its application, or uses. Thebroad teachings of the disclosure can be implemented in a variety offorms. Therefore, while this disclosure includes particular examples,the true scope of the disclosure should not be so limited since othermodifications will become apparent upon a study of the drawings, thespecification, and the following claims. It should be understood thatone or more steps within a method may be executed in different order (orconcurrently) without altering the principles of the present disclosure.Further, although each of the embodiments is described above as havingcertain features, any one or more of those features described withrespect to any embodiment of the disclosure can be implemented in and/orcombined with features of any of the other embodiments, even if thatcombination is not explicitly described. In other words, the describedembodiments are not mutually exclusive, and permutations of one or moreembodiments with one another remain within the scope of this disclosure.

Spatial and functional relationships between elements (for example,between modules, circuit elements, semiconductor layers, etc.) aredescribed using various terms, including “connected,” “engaged,”“coupled,” “adjacent,” “next to,” “on top of,” “above,” “below,” and“disposed.” Unless explicitly described as being “direct,” when arelationship between first and second elements is described in the abovedisclosure, that relationship can be a direct relationship where noother intervening elements are present between the first and secondelements, but can also be an indirect relationship where one or moreintervening elements are present (either spatially or functionally)between the first and second elements. As used herein, the phrase atleast one of A, B, and C should be construed to mean a logical (A OR BOR C), using a non-exclusive logical OR, and should not be construed tomean “at least one of A, at least one of B, and at least one of C.”

In the figures, the direction of an arrow, as indicated by thearrowhead, generally demonstrates the flow of information (such as dataor instructions) that is of interest to the illustration. For example,when element A and element B exchange a variety of information butinformation transmitted from element A to element B is relevant to theillustration, the arrow may point from element A to element B. Thisunidirectional arrow does not imply that no other information istransmitted from element B to element A. Further, for information sentfrom element A to element B, element B may send requests for, or receiptacknowledgements of, the information to element A.

In this application, including the definitions below, the term “module”or the term “controller” may be replaced with the term “circuit.” Theterm “module” may refer to, be part of, or include: an ApplicationSpecific Integrated Circuit (ASIC); a digital, analog, or mixedanalog/digital discrete circuit; a digital, analog, or mixedanalog/digital integrated circuit; a combinational logic circuit; afield programmable gate array (FPGA); a processor circuit (shared,dedicated, or group) that executes code; a memory circuit (shared,dedicated, or group) that stores code executed by the processor circuit;other suitable hardware components that provide the describedfunctionality; or a combination of some or all of the above, such as ina system-on-chip.

The module may include one or more interface circuits. In some examples,the interface circuits may include wired or wireless interfaces that areconnected to a local area network (LAN), the Internet, a wide areanetwork (WAN), or combinations thereof. The functionality of any givenmodule of the present disclosure may be distributed among multiplemodules that are connected via interface circuits. For example, multiplemodules may allow load balancing. In a further example, a server (alsoknown as remote, or cloud) module may accomplish some functionality onbehalf of a client module.

Some or all hardware features of a module may be defined using alanguage for hardware description, such as IEEE Standard 1364-2005(commonly called “Verilog”) and IEEE Standard 1076-2008 (commonly called“VHDL”). The hardware description language may be used to manufactureand/or program a hardware circuit. In some implementations, some or allfeatures of a module may be defined by a language, such as IEEE1666-2005 (commonly called “SystemC”), that encompasses both code, asdescribed below, and hardware description.

The term code, as used above, may include software, firmware, and/ormicrocode, and may refer to programs, routines, functions, classes, datastructures, and/or objects. The term shared processor circuitencompasses a single processor circuit that executes some or all codefrom multiple modules. The term group processor circuit encompasses aprocessor circuit that, in combination with additional processorcircuits, executes some or all code from one or more modules. Referencesto multiple processor circuits encompass multiple processor circuits ondiscrete dies, multiple processor circuits on a single die, multiplecores of a single processor circuit, multiple threads of a singleprocessor circuit, or a combination of the above. The term shared memorycircuit encompasses a single memory circuit that stores some or all codefrom multiple modules. The term group memory circuit encompasses amemory circuit that, in combination with additional memories, storessome or all code from one or more modules.

The term memory circuit is a subset of the term computer-readablemedium. The term computer-readable medium, as used herein, does notencompass transitory electrical or electromagnetic signals propagatingthrough a medium (such as on a carrier wave); the term computer-readablemedium may therefore be considered tangible and non-transitory.Non-limiting examples of a non-transitory computer-readable medium arenonvolatile memory circuits (such as a flash memory circuit, an erasableprogrammable read-only memory circuit, or a mask read-only memorycircuit), volatile memory circuits (such as a static random accessmemory circuit or a dynamic random access memory circuit), magneticstorage media (such as an analog or digital magnetic tape or a hard diskdrive), and optical storage media (such as a CD, a DVD, or a Blu-rayDisc).

The apparatuses and methods described in this application may bepartially or fully implemented by a special purpose computer created byconfiguring a general purpose computer to execute one or more particularfunctions embodied in computer programs. The functional blocks andflowchart elements described above serve as software specifications,which can be translated into the computer programs by the routine workof a skilled technician or programmer.

The computer programs include processor-executable instructions that arestored on at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium. Thecomputer programs may also include or rely on stored data. The computerprograms may encompass a basic input/output system (BIOS) that interactswith hardware of the special purpose computer, device drivers thatinteract with particular devices of the special purpose computer, one ormore operating systems, user applications, background services,background applications, etc.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method for issuing acommand to a controlled object in an environment, comprising: for eachpolicy from a set of policies, wherein the policy specifies the commandfor the controlled object to implement and the command directly affectsmotion of the controlled object: receiving a state estimate for each ofone or more monitored objects and the controlled object, wherein eachstate estimate includes state elements, and wherein the state elementsare indicative of a position of the respective object and a velocity ofthe respective object; generating seed states for each of the one ormore monitored objects and the controlled object; simulating movement ofthe one or more monitored objects and the controlled object using theseed states, wherein the simulation includes the controlled objectexecuting the respective policy; assigning a cost to outcome of thesimulation with the seed states; determining a probability associatedwith the seed states; quantifying an outcome of the simulation with theseed states based on the cost and the probability; simulating movementof the one or more monitored objects and the controlled object7usingperturbed inputs by: perturbing at least one state element of the seedstates to determine perturbed seed states; simulating movement of theone or more monitored objects and the controlled object using theperturbed seed states; assigning a perturbed cost to outcome of thesimulation with the perturbed seed states; determining a perturbedprobability associated with the perturbed seed states; quantifying aperturbed outcome of the simulation with the perturbed seed states basedon the perturbed cost and the perturbed probability; and repeating thesimulating movement of the one or more monitored objects and thecontrolled objects with perturbed inputs until a predetermined conditionis met, thereby generating a plurality of perturbed outcomes;determining a policy score for the respective policy, wherein the policyscore correlates to the perturbed outcome having highest value amongstthe plurality of perturbed outcomes for the respective policy; selectinga given policy from the set of policies, wherein the given policy hasmost benign outcome amongst the policies in the set of policies; andissuing the command to the controlled object in accordance with thegiven policy.
 2. The method of claim 1 wherein the perturbing at leastone state element of the seed states maximizes a product of theperturbed cost and the perturbed probability.
 3. The method of claim 1further comprises perturbing at least one state element usingbackpropagation.
 4. The method of claim 1 wherein simulating movement ofthe one or more monitored objects further comprises representingtrajectory of an object using a differentiable function.
 5. The methodof claim 4 further comprises representing trajectory of an object byrecursively applying a transition function over a series of time steps,where the transition function is defined such that objects are repelledby other agents and attracted towards a goal in accordance with a socialforce model.
 6. The method claim 4 wherein simulating movement of theone or more monitored objects includes determining perturbed seed statesby iteratively computing gradient for each time step in the series oftime steps with respect to the perturbed seed states.
 7. The method ofclaim 5 wherein the given policy avoids a set of undesired outcomes, andwherein the set of undesired outcomes includes at least one of (i) acollision between the controlled object and one of the one or moremonitored objects; and (ii) the controlled object being within apredetermined distance of the one or more monitored objects.
 8. Themethod of claim 1 wherein the state elements are represented by aprobability distribution.
 9. The method of claim 8 wherein one of thestate elements is indicative of a goal of the controlled object.
 10. Themethod of claim 9 wherein the cost is determined using a blame metric,wherein the blame metric is a function of a distance between thecontrolled object and one of the one or more monitored objects and thevelocity of the controlled object.
 11. The method of claim 10 whereinthe cost is determined using a progress toward the goal of thecontrolled object.
 12. The method of claim 1 wherein the received stateestimate for each of the one or more monitored objects is aprobabilistic estimate of the one or more monitored objects based on aperception module.
 13. The method of claim 1 wherein the set of policiesinclude at least one of the following commands for the controlled objectto: (i) change a trajectory to follow one of the one or more monitoredobjects; (ii) remain in the same position; (iii) move forward; (iv)decelerate; and (v) accelerate.
 14. A controlled object in anenvironment comprising: a controller configured to, for each policy froma set of policies, determine a best policy, wherein the policy specifiesa command for the controlled object to implement, and wherein thecommand indicates a direction of the controlled object; a non-transitorycomputer-readable medium that stores instructions that, when executed bya processor, cause the processor to: receive, from a perception module,a state estimate for each of one or more monitored objects and thecontrolled object, wherein each state estimate includes state elements,and wherein the state elements are indicative of a position of therespective object and a velocity of the respective object; generate, viaa seed state generator, seed states for each of the one or moremonitored objects and the controlled object; simulate, via a simulator,movement of the one or more monitored objects and the controlled objectusing the seed states, wherein the simulation includes the controlledobject executing the respective policy; quantify, via an outcomequantifier, an outcome for the seed states by assigning a cost to theoutcome and determining a probability associated with the seed states;simulate, via the simulator, movement of the one or more monitoredobjects and the controlled objects using perturbed inputs by:perturbing, via a perturbing module, at least one state element of theseed states using backpropagation to determine perturbed seed states,wherein the perturbing maximizes the product of a perturbed cost and aperturbed probability; simulating, via the simulator, movement of theone or more monitored objects and the controlled object using theperturbed seed states to calculate the perturbed cost associated withthe perturbed seed states; quantifying, via the outcome quantifier, aperturbed outcome for the perturbed seed states as a perturbed productof the perturbed cost and the perturbed probability associated with theperturbed seed states; and repeating, via the controller, the simulatingmovement of the one or more monitored objects and the controlled objectswith perturbed inputs until a predetermined condition is met, therebygenerating a plurality of perturbed products; determine, via thecontroller, a policy score for the respective policy, wherein the policyscore correlates to the perturbed outcome having highest value amongstthe policies in the set of policies; select, via the controller, a givenpolicy from the set of policies, wherein the given policy has mostbenign outcome amongst the policies in the set of policies; and issue,via the controller, the command to the controlled object in accordancewith the given policy.
 15. The controlled object of claim 14 furthercomprise simulating movement of the one or more monitored objects byrepresenting trajectory of an object using a differentiable function.16. The controlled object of claim 15 further comprises representingtrajectory of an object by recursively applying a transition functionover a series of time steps, where the transition function is definedsuch that objects are repelled by other agents and attracted towards agoal in accordance with a social force model.
 17. The controlled objectof claim 15 wherein simulating movement of the one or more monitoredobjects includes determining perturbed seed states by iterativelycomputing gradient for each time step in the series of time steps withrespect to the perturbed seed states.
 18. The controlled object of claim14 wherein the set of policies include at least one of the followingcommands for the controlled object to: (i) change lanes, (ii) proceedthrough an intersection, (iii) merge into traffic at a position relatedto one or more vehicles within the other flow of traffic.